Health care, testing go hand in hand

“Up to three out of four people who have it, don’t know they have it,” says Chris Nevin-Woods, director of the Pueblo City-County Health Department.

And of the people who do get tested and get a positive result, 50 percent don’t get follow-up testing and treatment, she says.

A screening blood test (an antibody test) shows if a person ever has been infected with the hepatitis C virus. If the test is positive, a follow-up RNA blood test is needed to determine if the person still is infected.

Pueblo doesn’t have a specific site for hepatitis C testing, Nevin-Woods says.

“We would urge people to get tied into primary health care and get tested from there.”

People without primary care physicians could inquire into getting care and testing at Pueblo Community Health Centers, Southern Colorado Family Medicine at St. Mary-Corwin Medical Center, Parkview Medical Center’s internal medicine residency program, or at the Posada clinic for homeless people, she suggests.

Most people who have chronic hepatitis C virus infection don’t have symptoms, though they may have mild or severe chronic liver disease. Such disease can progress slowly for several decades, and the infection causing it may not be detected until a person is screened to donate blood or has blood work for a routine exam.